CHAPTER XVIII.

It often happens that a big shock which pulls us up with a sharp jerk on the road we are travelling will show us the danger of the way before us, and teach us to walk warily all our days. So it was with Esther. The shock and horror, and the awful fear she endured that afternoon, showed her, as nothing else could, the way she was going. I do not for a moment mean to say that she conquered her unfortunate temper all at once, and became perfectly good and gentle and free from all jealousy from that moment. That would have been impossible to any one, certainly to a child of such strong feelings, so reserved and sensitive, so full of failings as Esther. But she did try, and if she failed she did her best to conquer next time, and only those who have tried too know how hard that is.

Others helped her a little without her knowledge. Penelope tried to restrain herself in a half unconscious habit she had got into of putting herself before her shyer elder sister.

Mademoiselle was careful, too, to show her how much she valued her, and to try not to wound her sensitive, loving heart; so was Cousin Charlotte. And Esther, on her part, taught herself the lesson that one person can love two without loving either the less.

So when Penelope was at last able to creep about again, and Guard seemed as hale and hearty as ever, a new era of peace and happiness dawned for Moor Cottage, and never could there have been a happier, busier, more united little household than that was.

The summer went by like a golden flash, so it seemed to the children, so full was every day of work and play, picnics, lessons, walks, gardening, and a dozen other occupations. No matter what the weather, or how busy she was, Esther never failed to go to Mademoiselle Leperier's three times a week, and twice a week Penelope went for her singing lesson. Penelope was having French lessons of Mademoiselle too, and she and Esther studied together.

Miss Row came back from her journeyings, and, entirely oblivious apparently of all that had passed, sent for Penelope to recommence her organ lessons, and was quite annoyed that she had not kept up her practising. But at this Miss Ashe's gentle spirit rose, and she talked to Miss Row so frankly and seriously that that eccentric lady became very repentant, and to make up for her unkindness promised Penelope the post of organist, at a salary of twenty-five pounds a year, as soon as ever she was capable of filling it.

To Penelope this was success indeed, and as soon as her arm was strong enough to bear it she practised with an assiduity which promised that the time was not so very far distant when she would be fitted to take over her appointment.

Angela, before that summer was over, acquired three more chicks and a fowls' house of her own, and already saw visions of herself presiding over a farm—which should adjoin Moor Cottage—well stocked with fowls and ducks, geese and turkeys, cows and pigs, horses and dogs.

"And I shall write out to daddy and mother to come home," she would say triumphantly. For Angela never grew reconciled to the thought of her parents' exile. "It must be so sad and lonely and uncomfortable out there," she would say. "Mother might find it dull here, but she would have lots of books to read, and that would make her happy."

"I should live wiv you, shouldn't I, Angela?" Poppy inquired eagerly.

"Oh yes, we should all live together."

"But what about Cousin Charlotte? I am sure she would be very unhappy wivout us; so would Anna." Poppy found matters very difficult of arrangement, owing to her incapacity to live in two places at the same time. "I shouldn't like to leave Cousin Charlotte and Anna and Guard and Ephraim."

"I should stay with Cousin Charlotte," said Esther one day, when the matter was under discussion. "You see, there would be so many of you, you wouldn't want me, but Cousin Charlotte would, and we should be next door, so it would be almost the same."

But all these premature plans were thrown that autumn into confusion by a letter from Canada. Instead of waiting to be sent for by his prosperous daughters Mr. Carroll wrote to say he had made up his mind to come.

"Your cousin cannot reconcile herself to the life here," he wrote, "and says she can never be happy here; and as I am not doing well enough to warrant me in staying on in spite of her objections, I am thinking of selling out and coming home with her very soon. For the time, to give me an opportunity to look about me, I can think of no better plan than to come near you, my dear cousin, if a small house can be found for us. I cannot describe to you my longing to see my children again, nor with what pleasure I am filled at the prospect of coming home, even though I have to write myself down a failure here."

Then he went on to thank her in most grateful and feeling terms for her goodness to his children, terms which drew tears from the gentle little lady's eyes and set her to wondering what she could do really to help this almost unknown cousin and his children.

When she told the children the news their excitement was great; but when, a week later, came another letter, asking, if there was a cottage at Dorsham or close by to be found, that it should be taken for them, if it would possibly do, their excitement grew intense.

"Oh, if only I had my farm!" cried Angela, and she went out and looked at the ground, as though expecting the foundations might have already begun to show.

But no cottage was to be found next door or in Dorsham. There were not very many all told, and those there were were always full, so that if one family wanted to change they had to wait until another was in the same mind, and then just walk in to each other's houses. But up at Four Winds there was a square, sturdy cottage built expressly, one would think, to defy those winds that blew over the village. It was the only one, but all the four girls agreed that it would be just the very thing. It had a sitting-room and kitchen and scullery and three bedrooms, tiny rooms all of them, but to the children it was one of the most fascinating little places ever built; and when stocked with the simple furniture Miss Charlotte had had instructions to purchase it really did look a dear, cosy little house.

And such it seemed to the weary travellers when they arrived, the father tired, disappointed with his last attempt, and bowed under a burden of care, but so glad to see his children again that nothing else seemed to matter. Such it seemed, too, to the mother, so disgusted with the roughness and want of comforts in the life she had been leading lately that everything seemed luxurious and replete with comfort.

Cousin Charlotte and the girls had certainly done their best to make the place look homelike, and Anna had helped to clean it from top to bottom, to lay carpets, hang curtains, and polish everything that could be polished, so that it really was in a perfect state of order and cleanliness.

It was in the spring that the travellers finally reached Four Winds, just when the brooks were beginning to run with a cheerful note, and the scent of wet moss and primroses to fill the air.

As they drove from the station on the memorable day of their arrival Mr. Carroll drew in the sweet fresh breeze as though it were the breath of life to him, and almost shouted with pleasure at the sight of the catkins on the nut-bushes, and the 'goslings' on the willows, and the yellowhammers and thrushes hopping in the hedges.

They got down for a moment at Moor Cottage to see the children's home, and be introduced to Anna and Guard.

"You noble old fellow, you saved my girls' lives," said Mr. Carroll, patting the dear old dog's rough head; and Guard wagged his tail and looked as pleased as though he quite understood.

Then Mrs. Carroll and Miss Ashe mounted the quaint old carriage again, and drove slowly on with the luggage, while Mr. Carroll and his girls, and, of course, Guard, walked on behind. The elder girls were a little shy and constrained just at first, perhaps, and Angela was silent with happiness. If she talked much she should weep, she felt; but she showed her father her hens and hen-house before they started on again. "And in time I shall have a whole farm, father," she said seriously, "and then I want you to come to live with me on it, and we will have all kinds of animals."

"A capital idea," said Mr. Carroll gravely, without a trace of a smile as he looked at the very modest beginning so much was to spring from.

But, if the others were silent Poppy, when once her tongue was loosened, made up for it, and she trotted along by her father's side, holding his hand, and chattering to him as freely as though he had never been away.

The greatest joy of all though was when they reached the new cottage, and displayed their arrangements there—the sitting-room, with its easy-chairs, and table spread with dainty white cloth, shining tea-things, and some of Anna's nicest cakes. A fire was burning in the grate, making it warm and cheerful for the strangers. Upstairs the simply furnished bedrooms looked equally attractive and spotlessly clean, and then last of all came the cheerful, cosy little kitchen, looking a perfect picture, with its bright tin and copper and china reflecting the firelight on all sides; and where, oh crowning delight, sat the neatest of neat little maid-servants, her rosy cheeks growing rosier and rosier as her new master and mistress and all the young ladies trooped in. She rose and curtseyed when she saw Mr. and Mrs. Carroll, for she was a well-trained country child, not yet contaminated by the modern 'Board-school manners.' So she curtseyed civilly, and stood while her master and mistress were present; and when Mr. Carroll asked her her name, she answered, "Grace, if you please, sir," and blushed again; and when he said, "Well, Grace, so you have come to help us. I hope we shall all be very happy and comfortable together," she curtseyed and said, "Yes, thank you, sir. I'll try my best."

The bedrooms, all but Mr. and Mrs. Carroll's, were very tiny. One was so small it would only hold one little bed.

"But where is the fourth chick to roost?" asked their father anxiously. "You don't expect one to sit up while the other sleeps, I hope?" laughing.

But Cousin Charlotte, to whom he spoke, did not laugh back. "I—I wondered," she said, looking up at him very wistfully, as though she knew she was asking a great deal—"I wondered, Ronald, if you would spare me one, at—at least until I have got used to losing them all. I know it is a good deal to ask you, but—I shall be so very lonely—" poor Cousin Charlotte's voice quavered—"and as your house is so small I wondered if you would let me still keep my Esther?"

Esther started, and a sense of disappointment made her heart sink. Remembering her mother's dislike of housekeeping, and her incapacity, Esther had all this time been picturing herself as housekeeper and real mistress of this dear little home, presiding over the kitchen and the neat little maid and generally distinguishing herself as cook and housewife. She had known, of course, that there was only room for three of them there, but she had, somehow, thought of Angela as being the one to remain with Cousin Charlotte, because, perhaps, of her fowls, and her position as mistress of the poultry yards.

For the first few moments, therefore, when she heard Cousin Charlotte's request, she felt a deep pang of disappointment. "But mother will need me here," she was just about to say, when there rushed over her the memory of all Cousin Charlotte had done for them, her goodness and patience, her generosity and unselfishness, and now her loneliness,—and all her feelings changed.

"She is my right hand," Cousin Charlotte went on pathetically. "I do not know what I should do without her now!"

Then how glad Esther was that she had not spoken, and oh! the joy and pride that filled her heart, the deep, deep happiness of knowing that she had been of real use and comfort, that some one really needed her. With only a little effort she put aside all her feeling about the new home, and determined, if her parents consented, to go blithely with Cousin Charlotte, and never, never, never let her know of that moment's unwillingness.

Consent was given, of course. How could they refuse to spare one to her who had taken them all and made her home theirs when they had no other, and had loved and cared for them, and guided them so well and faithfully without hope of reward?

Mr. Carroll was only too happy to be able to do something in return.

"I think it will be good for Penelope, too, to have a few housekeeping duties," said Cousin Charlotte, smiling as she laid her gentle hand on Pen's shoulder. "It will help to balance the dreamy side of her—at any rate until Angela grows older; while Angela—well, Angela is a born housekeeper and farmer combined, and I prophesy that within a year or so she will be keeping the house and all of you in such order and comfort as to be a pattern to the country round."

Angela's face grew radiant. "I'd love to," she said joyously; "but I wish—the only thing I wish is that we could all live together. I don't want to leave you, Cousin Charlotte, yet I want to be with—you understand, don't you?"

Yes, Cousin Charlotte understood. They all felt the same; but when the three had left their old home for the new one it was only, as one might say, to live in two houses instead of one, for never a day passed but what they were down at Miss Charlotte's, and so the change was not such a wrench as all had feared. Miss Charlotte insisted on continuing to teach them all—at any rate, she said, until they were obliged to go away to school.

Mademoiselle Leperier, who actually went to call on Mrs. Carroll, declared her health and spirits were so much improved by the new interest the children had provided her with that she begged to be allowed to give them all lessons in French, and singing, too.

"I foresee that I shall have no housekeeper after all," said Mrs. Carroll with a sigh, "but I suppose I shall manage somehow, and the children are being educated, which is something. One must think of them first, I suppose."

Esther felt a pang of doubt when she heard the words. Ought she not, after all, to give up her happy home with Cousin Charlotte, where by this time she had completely settled down, and come up to take care of her mother? She would see but little of Mademoiselle if she did, she saw that plainly, and there would be very little time for study, but there was her father to think of, and his comfort.

But when she laid her doubts before her father and Cousin Charlotte, they bade her put them out of her head. She tried to, though she doubted their advice; and it was only years later, when she was a well-educated, cultured woman, full of interests and good aims, that she understood the wisdom of Cousin Charlotte's plan in taking her away, at least until her education was complete, from where she would have become little but a household drudge, worked beyond her strength, her talents, her greatest interests undeveloped, her temper irritated and ruined as it was when first she came to Dorsham; and she felt deeply grateful for the understanding and loving care which had surrounded her at so critical a time.